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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alohal who wrote (57464)	4/26/1999 3:39:00 PM
From: BSGrinder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

A few things: 1. I have read thousands of Mike Burke posts and NONE have been rancorous. Dismissive, condescending, needling, perhaps, but without rancor, which I cannot say about the few of yours I have read. 2. Sales growth is ALWAYS measured in dollars not units. It is only because deceitful companies want to disguise poor or non-existent sales growth that they talk exclusively about unit growth. 3. Why are you inflicting yourself on innocent people in the name of revenge against Mike Burke? Just post him some nasty private messages and then think of something else to do. Note: The question in 3, above, is purely rhetorical and does not require an answer. /BSG

To: Alohal who wrote (57464)	4/26/1999 5:03:00 PM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Alohal: I sense from your posts that you do not believe that the PC situation is deteriorating. Perhaps you have forgotten the 25% to 35% REVENUE growth years of a few years ago as well as the excellent profits that virtually all PC companies used to earn on same. Now we have a new phenomenon,..."seasonality" (due to the channel stuffing of the last two years when Christmas builds could not be absorbed). We also find the number one PC builder, Compaq in serious trouble for the second Spring in a row. We witness Dell's revenue growth fall off. We observe HWP post many quarters in a row of "disappointing" results, curiously occurring since that excellent company involved itself in the PC sector. We hear of IBM dropping $1.0 billion in a single year in PC sales. Virtually every reseller in America has both posted crummy numbers and bluntly warned that corporate purchasing has fallen precipitously. We watch as Dell's vaunted assault on Asia is blunted. We note weaker players exiting the arena. We unearth more accounting chicanery in the box builder's reporting. We marvel at the torrent of unrelenting insider selling. Now tell me,.....what the heck do you require in the way of evidence to accept that there is a slowdown? I see that you have cited IDC/Dataquest info. Do you recall when they ceased discussing PC revenues and commenced only referencing units? Additionally, I suspect that you have been around the sector long enough to know that their commentary has always been "optimistic", to the point where the industry itself is embarrassed by it. If not, perform a simple action. Go back over the last 5 years and correlate their projections with the follow-on reality. Their stuff is a joke. Should you not believe that there are problems in the PC sector, then by all means, retain ownership of your Dell shares or whatever other box builders you own. The insiders themselves are exiting like nothing I have ever witnessed in 16 years of research, but perhaps you are more knowledgeable than they, and in any event, those insiders need someone to provide them their liquidity, and you might as well be one of the providers, particularly if you refuse to acknowledge the growing pile of supporting evidence. A last point,....care to comment on what you feel are appropriate PEs for the box builders, (especially Dell) and care to provide some supporting evidence to back the view? best, Earlie

To: Alohal who wrote (57464)	4/26/1999 5:20:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 132070

My "thought" is that Earlie has given you a far better response than I could, perhaps you could give his points the thoughtful response they deserve?